


Shit Nag

by soupyguts



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupyguts/pseuds/soupyguts
Summary: Jack Marston, his dilapidated ranch, and a feral horse that's been sliced up like a Christmas ham.





	Shit Nag

_Deep breaths. Just deep breaths, honey._   


I huffed out, sucked in through eggshell teeth, digged my thumbs into the dimples of jean-clad knees. Then, opened my eyes, squinting like I'd been blinded by the harsh transfer of booming sunlight from the comfort of a dimly lit parlor.  
  
I rubbed my own cheek, leaving a light dusting of peat on ruddy skin from the daily ritual of wiping down the three wooden graveheads. Looking at the property line, I heard Mama crooning at me in that mother-worn, soothing voice of hers, the one that made my eyes burn when I thought of the last time I'd heard it.   
  
Pushing myself up with a heave, I glanced at the graveheads, then shambled back down to the house, brushing my palms on the horse-cribbed grooves in the paddock fence on the way. Gave a scratch on Rachel's silver speckled muzzle when she approached me on the off-chance I'd offer her a cookie. She'd gone lame in her left hind foot in the past couple years, wasn't the sleek off-track thoroughbred mare Pa was always sweet on anymore. I quite suddenly remembered I hadn't checked her and the one heifer I had left for worms.

 

Rachel's all-seeing nag eyes roasted twin halos in the back of my skull as I continued on, daring not to oblige her simple wishes.  
  
I glanced at the barn, but I didn't dare look at the front doors.   
  
I always take the long way around the house now. Every time I walk on the porch, Uncle, slouched against the moth-eaten rail, stares balefully at me.   
  
\--   
  
My eyelids felt caramel-sticky when I woke from my dry-throated slumber, and I slipped my tongue over chapped lips. I fumbled for Pa's pocket watch, buried in the pocket of my jacket. _8:21_ .   
  
I laid there, lethal sugar-slicked eyelids threatening me with unconsciousness, until the guilt of leaving the ranch's two last pathetic livestock to go hungry finally set in. I needed to have _some_ dignity, at least.   
  
Trudging out the door on my way to the barn, the daily nuisance greeted me. _Shit Nag_ was snacking on what was left of the crops, Rachel watching it with raw envy at its freedom. I broke into a weak jog towards the animal.   
  
"Go on," I howled, my arms waving in a manic rage. "Scram!"   
  
Its head slowly lifted up, its right ear turned towards me. Now, _Shit Nag_ was wholly blind on its right side, a deep ditch where its eye would be. Even so, it always felt like it was judging me, like I dared to exist on what was left of this dying ranch that the occasional wildlife tended to squat on.   
  
Quickly losing patience, I shrieked at it. "Get out of here, you dumb animal! Stop pestering me!"   
  
It didn't move until I got around ten feet of it, when it finally decided it didn't want me to smack it, trotting towards the property's southern gate. Long, dark scars on its left cheek flashed hot at me in the dewy sunlight as it turned to leave.   
  
I wasn't a stranger to the occasional wild horse, deer, coyote, or even wolf wandering onto the property. But none of them had ever returned, even when I had tentatively offered some of the whitetail deer apples and pears. _Shit Nag_ had started coming around a couple years back, often hanging around the front of the barn. I'd walked out, been in damn near stupid awe at the state of the pathetic animal.   
  
It was a liver chestnut, the same color as its own fecal matter it had left as its namesake present on the first day. But it was littered with raw bites and pink scars, which is what had shocked me more.   
  
It appeared at night sometimes, its one good eye reflecting as it stared me down through the windows.   
  
The first time, it accompanied a flash of Pa in the kitchen doorway after Mama had gone to sleep, his lips oozing copper tinged crimson.   


_Get out of here,_ he'd wheezed at me in a cigarette burned voice.

I'd skittered to my bedroom like a frightened mouse, the door slamming behind me.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
